The present invention relates to a work flow management system, more particularly to a work flow management system for controlling a work flow of a circulation of electronic documents sent from a plurality of senders according to a predetermined route.
The Nikkei Computer magazine, No. 336, issued on May 2, 1994 on pages 57 to 67, describes a work flow system which supports a work to be done jointly by a group of people. Further, the "The electronic mail circulation method and the electronic mail circulation system" disclosed in the JP-A-4-77030 is known in the art. According to the above-described work flow systems, source of generation of electronic documents is limited to only one place, and the systems are controlled such that a single document is circulated along a predetermined route.
According to the prior-art work flow systems, the source of generation of electronic documents is limited to only one place and a single document is circulated along a predetermined route. According to these methods, however, it has been difficult to apply the systems to a complex work which involves a plurality of sources of generation of electronic documents in the work flow for one work and which requires a circulation of these electronic documents collectively or which requires an allocated circulation of once-circulated electronic documents to different positions taking different job roles, etc. For example, as described later as an embodiment of the present invention with reference to FIG. 2, a complex work in the insurance assessment work involves an integration of documents from a plurality of generation sources of documents, such as application sheets from insurance applicants, medical certificates by doctors or investigation sheets by operators, and circulation of these documents in one, and further a change of assessment staff according to insurance amount and different procedures to be taken between an approved case and a non-approved case as a result of assessment.
It has been difficult to apply the conventional work flow systems to the above-described works because of the lack of the following functions in these systems.
(1) a function for defining a plurality of generation sources of documents, or senders. PA1 (2) a function for integrating electronic documents sent from a plurality of senders into one circulation material. PA1 (3) a function for dividing one circulation material into a plurality of circulation materials. PA1 (4) a function for circulating a circulation material by branching to one of a plurality of circulation destinations according to the value of attribute records attached to the circulation material. PA1 (5) a function for broadcasting a circulation material to a plurality of circulation destinations and for recovering the broadcasted circulation material. PA1 (6) a function for controlling the timing of circulating a circulation material according to time conditions. PA1 (7) a function for changing circulation destinations according to time conditions and status conditions.